fferent
notes as they were uttered. This is the record: "Rat-t-t-t-t" (very
rapid); "quit! quit! quit!" (a little slower); "wh-eu! wh-eu!" (still
more deliberately); "chack! chack! chack!" (quite slow); "cr[=e],
cr[=e], cr[=e], cr[=e]" (fast); "hu-way! hu-way!" (very sweet). There
was a still more musical clause that I cannot put into syllables, then a
rattle exactly like castanets, and lastly a sort of "Kr-r-r! kr-r-r!" in
the tone of a great-crested flycatcher. While this will not express to
one who has not heard it the marvelous charm of it all, it will at least
indicate the variety.

Hardly waiting to dispose of breakfast, I betook myself to my "woodland
enchanted," resolved to stay till I saw that bird.

"All day in the bushes
The woodland was haunted."

The voice was soon on hand, and once more I was treated to the
incomparable recitative.

This day, too, my patience was rewarded; the mystery was solved; I saw
the Unknown! While my eyes were fixed upon a certain bush before me, the
singer incautiously ventured too near the top of a twig, and I saw him
plainly, standing almost upright, and vehemently chanting his fantasia,
opening his mouth very wide with every call. I knew him at once, the
rogue! from having read of him; he was the yellow-breasted chat. It was
well, indeed, that I happened to be looking at that very spot, and that
I was quick in my observation; for in a moment he saw the blunder he had
made, and slipped back down the stem, too late for his secret--I had him
down in black and white.

From that time the little park was never lonely, nor did I spend much
time dreaming over Cheyenne. The moment I appeared in the morning my
lively host began his vocal gymnastics, while I sat spellbound,
bewitched by the magic of his notes. In spite of being absorbed in
listening to him, I retained my faculties sufficiently to reflect that
the chat had probably other employment than entertaining me, and that
doubtless his object was to distract my attention from looking about me,
or to reproach me for intruding upon his private domain. In either case
there was, of course,

"A nest unseen
Somewhere among the million stalks;"

and, delightful as I found the unseen bird, his nest was a treasure I
was even more anxious to see.

Not to disturb him more than necessary, I spent part of an evening
studying up the nesting habits of the chat,--the long-tailed,
yellow-breasted, as I found him to be,--and th